A family affair for Peter Norfolk

Perhaps it's unsurprising that a man who styles himself as a Mafioso likes to talk tough: Paralympic tennis champion Peter "The Quadfather" Norfolk believes he is even fitter than two-time Wimbledon champion Rafael Nadal: "It takes someone in a wheelchair 40 per cent more effort to play tennis than an able-bodied person. We've only got our arms and our shoulders. We are fitter than Nadal."

He certainly has the track record to support this: 50-year-old Norfolk is Britain's most decorated wheelchair tennis player, with an armoury of medals to rival even Nadal's. He is a two-time Paralympic quad singles gold medallist; two-time Paralympic quad doubles medallist, and ranked the No 1 quad singles player in the world in five of the last eight seasons - not to mention his five Grand Slam titles and his OBE.

As Norfolk emphasises, the only difference between wheelchair and able-bodied tennis is that wheelchair players are allowed two bounces of the ball. As long as the first bounce is within the usual parameters of the court, the second bounce can be outside.

As fierce a defender of the Paralympics as he is of his titles, he is adamant there will be no real difference between the two events: "What you'll have is the top wheelchair athletes in the world competing for the top prize. It will be a spectacle you've never before seen in your life. OK, you can have the second bounce, but 80 per cent of the time you take it on the first to give your opponent less time. It's fantastic - dynamic, fast."

Norfolk's steely attitude stood him in good stead when, at 19, he was left paraplegic after breaking his back and shoulder blades in an horrific motorbike smash. After almost a year in rehabilitation at Stoke Mandeville Hospital he faced life in a wheelchair - a blow for a man who had wanted to join the Army.

He was inspired to take up wheelchair tennis after watching a match 10 years later, only to find that he was losing the use of his right arm. This required even more surgery but Norfolk comes across as tough: "I had to have my spine cut in half just to allow me to play. But I have a passion for tennis. I have tremendous support - without my wife, my family (he has two young children) I couldn't do it. I feel enormously lucky."